


our little game

by nencenedril (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Sickness, Tentacles, god AU, trapped in a maze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 22:39:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/nencenedril
Summary: Harry is trapped in a never ending maze, carefully watched and healed by the God of Knowledge everytime he fails to escape.





	our little game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valdemort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valdemort/gifts).



[](https://imgur.com/yxFuAmP)

* * *

Harry coughed, struggling with the pockets in his jacket to pull out a pocket watch. Shakily he pressed down on the latch, and the golden top flung itself open. Inside, the black lines of the hands, spun around and round lazily.

He sighed, shutting it. There was no clue to how long he had been set back into the maze, how long he had been healed…

He coughed again, his throat aching and his tongue dry as he swallowed.

The fog that surrounded him, made it hard to even see at the end of the row -- it was the sickness that infested this place, that sent previous patrons of the God of Knowledge mad and sick -- it was what he was racing against, every laboured breath as he ran down winding hallways bringing him closer to death.

He looked up and saw the spiralling levels of the maze reach so far above all he could see was darkness. He shook his head, it would not help to lose hope in this never ending maze.

In the corner of his eye, he caught the movement of something dark through the dense white fog. He turned and half-hurriedly jogged to a different section of this particular level. He had learnt during his early tries of this maze just how dangerous the things that lurked in these twisting and gravity defying hallways could be.

Overhead the grinding sound of stone could be heard as a corridor flipped onto the underside of another level. From where he was walking he could just about see the form of a fellow patron, collapsed.

* * *

Harry shuffled, struggling to place one foot in front of another. One step at a time. The maze was winding, confusing, puzzling. His head spun. 

He wrenched forward, hand clasping desperately at the warped and rotting wood of the shelves. 

Placing his forehead against the cold top of his hand, he heavied in shaking breathes. A frigid sweat dripped down his forehead, hair plastered, wet and curly to his skin.

The shelves stretched across each wall, stacks and rows of books in between each shelf, haphazardly shoved onto the planks of wood. They varied in size from massive tomes sat on their sides that filled the whole space to small slim journals and loose bundled sheets. Harry’s focused on them, smelling in the scent of paper and wood, trying to orientate himself.

A rumble passed through the air, deep and growling. His paranoid gaze swept the fog not knowing what had made the noise.

Harry’s head swung, lulling to and fro with its heavy weight on his thin neck. Even the deep fear he felt in his chest at the unnerving sound couldn’t stop the sickness he felt in this place, couldn’t urge him to run, run, run.

Run away from the noise, run away from the unnerving back shadow that inched its way towards him, it’s dark tendrils curling and snaking their way towards him.

He slide down the length of the bookshelf, crumbling in a heap at the bottom of it. His hands shook as they tried to find purchase as his head spun and lungs wheezed.

A shadowy tentacle creeped its way towards him, sliding out from a lower bookshelf between the tented structure of two books. Along it, where there would have been suckers on the arm of an octopus, instead were blinking, rolling eyes. All of them were a startlingly and bloody red, and they peered and peered towards the collapsed man.

Harry gave a deep shuddering gasp that ran through his frail body and out from the corner of his mouth seeped a dark black liquid, inky and thick as it dribbled down his pale chin. The tentacle reached out and wrapped slowly around his ankle, like a boa constrictor wrapping around the neck of its prey.

“No, no, no,” he murmured, barely moving his lips as he felt the strong tug on his leg. “I have time left, I have…” he said, drawling his words as he slowly slid further down the shelf, the tentacle tugging him closer and closer to the inky darkness now spilling out from where it had first emerged. It spiralled larger and larger and a strange haunting tune emanated from within it.

Harry closed his eyes as his head hid the ground, his legs being swallowed by the portal. It dragged him slowly towards its gaping maw, his hips, chest and shoulders slowly being consumed.

As it creeped up his neck his eyes rolled back into his head, and with darkening vision he passed out.

* * *

Harry awoke slowly, his mouth dry and had thumping. His leg and arms twitched and his fingertips grazed across the rough surface of the stone bed he was laying on.

His head slowly turned to the side and he blearily opened his eyes to find himself on a familiar stone pedestal, a bright light focused on his form. Deep grooves in the ground led to the central altar he laid on and dark liquid sloshed in the channels as it poured down from the walls in small waterfall-like streams.

“Back again, seeker,” a voice rasped from the shadows. Harry’s mouth opened and closed slowly trying, croaking as he tried to answer. “The sickness rampaged through your body faster than ever before,” the voice continued, “You’re time is running out, why don’t you just _give in_ ,” the last two words were whispered. 

Harry groaned, coughing deeply, his chest convulsing and his back lifting and falling back onto the pedestal.

“I will cure you once more.”

A tentacle crept up the side of the pedestal and slid towards his mouth. Harry pressed his lips as hard as he could as he felt the tip of it ghost across his face. It rammed down onto his firm lips and Harry gasped at the pain, the tentacle eagerly jumping in and filling his mouth. Quickly it pumped a cold liquid down his throat and Harry could feel the sickness withdraw from his body. Immediately his head cleared, the tiredness gone from his eyes and the heaviness in his limbs melted away.

A tall figure stepped out from the shadows, bare feet splashing in the deep grooves of the ground.

Harry turned his head, mouth still full with tentacle and he took in the vision of his Master.

The God smiled, striding towards Harry so graceful it was like he glided over the floor, long black robes flowing around him.

“Did you find the knowledge this time?” the snake-faced God asked, running his long and bony hands through Harry’s sweat-damp hair. The tentacle slid out of Harry’s mouth and he gulped.

“No, Voldemort,” he rasped, and Voldemort hands slid lower down over his face.

“You pushed it close this time,” Voldemort commented, his raspy voice washing over Harry.

“I was so close, I could have found it,” Harry insisted stubbornly, rising up to sit and leaning close to Voldemort’s tall form. Their faces nearly touched.

“My mortal,” Voldemort whispered, “how stubborn you are.”

“No one has escaped the maze yet, and I doubt you will either.”

Harry grit his teeth. “Why bother reviving me then?” he asked angrily, eyes flashing.

“Why does a man sit astride his horse and hunt the fox? For the pleasure of the chase.”


End file.
